What Would you Give up to Get Back?

"To center is to relax the tight fist of clinging. Into the open hand falls freedom." [Thomas Crum, Journey to Center]

For Hugh, it was Twitter. He enjoyed it, he was very popular, and he was good at it, but it was too easy - and it sapped away time and creativity that he can now invest in his book project.

For Scoble, it's turning off the Internet. Something about being bored causes us to be more productive, he wrote. I would say that doing one thing at a time makes us more focused on the task at hand so we get it done faster. Distractions indulge the procrastinator in us.

For your brand, it's not trying to be all things to all people. Instead, being more focused on the personality it already has and potentially aspire to the one it can achieve. Remember that in perceptual maps you can move only in one direction. No having your cake and eating it, too. Or as we say in Italy, having the cellar full and the wife drunk.

For your writing, it's cutting out what is not essential to your paragraph. In considering this piece, I thought about quoting from Al Ries' 22 Immutable Laws of Branding. It didn't quite fit, so out it came. (And ironically, it's back again.)

When it comes to your business, your brand, your projects, your relationships, or your Friday schedule, what would you give up to get back?